How do you learn?

"Be open minded' is a phrase that everyone is familiar with.  I have no idea when you may have heard it the first time, but I could offer a guess and say that it was either from someone in a leadership position, or someone who wanted to sway your opinion forcefully.

Regardless of whether or not your encounter with this phrase has negative or positive connotations, it is still completely true.  And we all love to think that we do have an open mind, but do we really?  Do we actually have an open mind towards everything in our life, everything we encounter and everyone we meet?  No, we don't.

For instance, the first place most of us lack open-mindedness is in the area of where our information, growth and teaching comes from.  If you are part of a church, you expect all the life-giving and life-changing information to come from your pastor, your circle of friends, your spiritual mentor, your Bible study group.

If you are privileged to be employed in your dream job, you expect this information to come from a boss, a colleague or the industry itself.

Having a close-knit family might lead you to believe that that's the only place you will receive your guidance from.  It's different for everyone, but we all fall in the same trap: we don't expect guidance and teaching to come from anywhere else.

I've learned (slowly but surely) that I shouldn't be surprised when I find myself growing and learning through other means.  And in my case, this means (to a certain extent) that I'm learning from the shows I watch.

Very recently (and still ongoing) I've been challenged to look at the way I approach life.  We are such a selfish species (and I say "species" because my current "teacher" is The Doctor...a time traveller who encounters many alien races!); even those who are the least selfish had to make a conscious decision to think and concentrate away from themselves.  This begs the question:  How do you approach something new, something you've never encountered before, someone that's completely different from you, something or someone that may be the opposite of you, something or someone that may not have the best of intentions?

I reckon we should approach everything with childlike and wide-eyed wonder.  Look at it with excitement, be hungry to learn about it.  And if it turns out to be something bad, recognise it for what it is; but if it's brilliant, acknowledge its brilliance.  And if it's brilliantly bad...well, tip your hat to it's brilliance before you turn around and give it no hold on your life.

We are sharing this life with so many exceptionally different and fascinating people and things; why would we limit our knowledge because we are too afraid to learn?